TUHH is one of the youngest universities in Germany. Priority is given to research, interdisciplinary studies and innovation. Also central to the approach is a close working relationship with regional industries and, more recently, the achievement of international scale. The group STS (Software, Technology and Systems, led by Prof. Schmidt) has a long tradition in developing languages or conceptual data modeling and persistent programming, systems for content management as well as frameworks for developing information portals. Recently, with the work of Prof. Moeller, STS extended its research area to the theory and practice of logic-based inference systems (in particular, description logic systems) in the context of databases and software architectures.

The STS group contributes to the research area covered by the project in several respects. First, one of the major description logic inference systems (Racer) is partly developed and maintained in this group. Second, STS develops optimization techniques for inference problems such that description logic systems can meet requirements from practical applications. Third, the group develops algorithms for decision problems involving novel language constructs in representation and query languages. Finally, STS was instrumental in founding IT companies specializing in content and knowledge management as well as portal technology (Coremedia AG Hamburg, infoAsset AG Munich).